Editorial

Has KM turned the corner? Has it passed away? Is there a future for this field or is KM morphing into something else? Have we been incorporated in mainstream management and transformed into a handful of cute clichés? Did we ever really break away from the charge of being a fad?

True to its diffuse, elemental nature the field of KM still pirouettes on questions like these.

And it can still spark a good debate in some hallways. But after 20 years of winding its path(s) this field of study and practice is now actually considered as such by a number of academic and business organizations. It is not so considered by others, however, despite the fact that increasing numbers of graduate students are trained every year and the scientific literature is gaining breadth and depth. The industry around KM has gone through its bumps and grinds but seems to have shaken out onto a relatively productive, if subdued, plateau. And the foibles of selective perception and contextual action being what they are, most of us believe we encounter more companies doing KM of one sort or another, in more sophisticated ways. With some actually intoning the prescription, “Well sure … this is the only way to manage things today isn’t it?”

Against this backdrop it is indeed a pleasure to assume the editorial role for EJKM … and many thanks to Feral McGrath for having carried the ball this far. We come to the job fresh from exciting times at ECKM 2004 (130 participants, 32 countries, 6 of the 7 continents) and motivated by having spent too many months administrating academia. EJKM is to Despres and Chauvel as KM is to many of you: a platform for making a difference, a way of molding some of the future that imposes itself.

We have plans. You have plans. One of our plans for EJKM is to actively reach out to you, the KM community, to co‑construct plans and actions that will develop a more robust and exciting community. This is patently reflexive but would you really have it any other way?

This issue of EJKM submits 8 articles that hail from Africa, Australia, Europe, North America and the UK that present some ideas that are genuinely new, and other that deepen our existing literature. Daneshgar & Amaravadi propose an awareness framework for sharing contextual knowledge among office workers in networked companies in order to support collaborative business processes. Durcikova & Everard focus on the issue of knowledge sharing among individuals and develop a typology that has academic and practitioner implications. Péter Fehér investigates the relationship between factors supporting change management and KM processes. Folorunso & Ogunde suggest that data mining and its implementation techniques are useful enablers of KM programs. Andrew Goh provides an empirical assessment of the influence that competence frameworks and utilization exert on innovation and firm performance. Handzic & Chaimungkalanont study the impact of socialization on organizational creativity and suggest that informal mechanisms have a stronger positive effect than formal ones. Hughes & Jackson investigate the world of KM in law enforcement and provide an explanatory sociotechnical model. And Hong Kun Wong argues that a knowledge value chain provides more operational and explanatory power than the conventional business value chain for assessing or managing organizational performance.

Abstract

Due to an evolution of business models compatible with networked economy, office — environments of this age need effective support for collaboration among office workers. This article demonstrates that existing Extended Office Systems (EOS) are not specifically designed to maintain awareness and knowledge‑sharing requirements of the collaborating actors of many of today's networked office environments. Using an awareness framework for sharing of contextual knowledge in collaborative business processes, this article provides general design directives for a Collaboration‑ Aware EOS (CAEOS) system that facilitates sharing of the contextual knowledge among office workers in networked offices. In order to assess its effectiveness, this framework is applied to a network management case study with the aim of identifying the awareness requirements of the actors within that process. The results confirm effectiveness of the framework. The components of the framework, that is the process model and the awareness model, are then used as analytical tools as input to the design of CAEOS for achieving its collaborating goals. It is suggested that the process model component of the framework to constitute foundation for the knowledge‑base component of the CAEOS, whereas the awareness model of the framework to constitute foundation for the inference engine of the CAEOS'.

Abstract

This paper presents a 2x2 matrix which focuses on individual knowledge and knowledge sharing. There is a vast amount of literature that has acknowledged that the management of knowledge is an important strategic and tactical approach to improve organizational performance. Knowledge sharing between individuals in an organization has also been recognized as a sound strategy to increase the value of the knowledge within a firm. The model presented in this paper proposes a typology of individuals that contributes to the literature both from an academic as well as a practitioner perspective; it extends the literature on knowledge management, and provides suggestions on how to aid individuals adopt a more desirable behavior that is conducive to firm survival.

Abstract

Knowledge is a strategic resource of knowledge‑intensive organisations, its effective management is critical for competitiveness. Choosing any kind of KM approach, organisations has to face changes even introducing, or even developing their KM practice. This paper analyses the relationship between change and knowledge management processes, between change management supporters and KM enablers. The research of consulting companies presents, that neglecting any part of supporters or enablers has negative impact on the whole knowledge management practice.

Abstract

Business Process Redesign (BPR) is undertaken to achieve order‑of‑magnitude improvements over 'old' form of the organisation. Practitioners in the academia and business world have developed a number of methodologies to support this competitive restructuring that forms the current focus of concern, many of which have not been successful. This paper suggests the use of Data Mining (DM) as a technique to support the process of redesigning a business by extracting the much‑needed knowledge hidden in large volumes of data maintained by the organization through the DM models.

Abstract

This study is concerned about the role of competence utilisation in innovation strategy. Using a correlational analysis based on non‑parametric statistics, it validates the impact of competence utilisation in relation to venture performance by testing three hypotheses. Data was gathered via a survey instrument to extract The findings are as follows: (1) The level of utilisation in technology, product and market competencies, as manifested by its role in innovation strategy, is positively correlated to venture performance; (2) The impact of competence utilisation is the strongest on sales profitability, followed by company growth and then organisational effectiveness; and (3) In terms of relative impact on venture performance, technology competence is the most effective, followed by product and market competence.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to empirically examine through an industry survey, the impact of socialisation on organisational creativity. The results of the study show a strong and significant positive relationship between informal as well as organised forms of socialisation and creativity. The results also indicate that informal socialisation had a stronger positive effect on creativity than organised socialisation. These findings confirm the value of socialisation in innovative organisations, and suggest the need for strategies that would provide for its encouragement.

Abstract

Throughout the world, police services are increasingly adopting a proactive, intelligence‑led approach to crime management. These services operate within environments characterized by firm hierarchy, the command and control paradigm and high social sensitivity. The implementation of strategies for the exploitation of knowledge and information within such environments reveals particular insights into organizational knowledge management. Understanding these issues may be of great value, particularly as despite the commitment to intelligence led policing, the outcomes to date have not met expectations. This paper proposes that social and political issues have the ability to influence knowledge management strategy by drawing upon Pan and Scarbrough's socio‑technical model to show the progression of the intelligence‑led policing philosophy over the past decade.

Abstract

The paper discusses the positive influence that knowledge creation exerts over organizational performance in regard to collaborative learning environmental and quality uncertainty. The paper shows the Knowledge Value Chain (KVC) would be the best means of expressing the environment and quality condition into corporation rather than the normal value chain and the former is thus becoming more important and significant method of implementation. The Knowledge Value Chain (KVC) will be worked as a model of the knowledge management framework. In a sense, KVC will provide more details how being incorporated with the environmental factors to success the corporation requirements. Eventually, KVC will also discuss how it enabled the corporation improve and develop the most competitive advantage position. As such, it will be widely used worldwide in future as an effective means of corporation management and sustainable development.